We all feel that in Sardinia germinates the seed of future Italian freedom; and, in such books as Doctor Antonio, and in such men as their author, we see what Italy is in spite of all her chains. We may guess what she can be when ransomed and reinstated in her rightful place among the nations.

We subjoin a favourable specimen of our author's powers of description and dialogue:

"How beautiful! how passing beautiful!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes dilating as she looked around. "How could you ever fear, or for a moment think," turning to the Doctor, "that my fancy could go beyond such reality as this? No fancy, not even a poet's, could conjure up, in wildest day-dream, this wondrous beauty."

"Truth to say," he answered, "I was only a very little afraid of your being disappointed. Sicilian as I am, and an enthusiast also in my admiration of my native island, yet I own that the scene before us is second to none of the most celebrated in Sicily."

"What an eastern look those waving palms give the hill of Bordighera! One might believe one's-self in Asia Minor," said Lucy.

It was indeed a beauteous scene. In front lay the immensity of sea, smooth as glass, and rich with all the hues of a dove's neck, the bright green, the dark purple, the soft ultramarine, the deep blue of a blade of burnished steel,-there glancing in the sun like diamonds, here rippling into a lacelike net of snowy foam. In strong relief against this bright background stands a group of red-capped, red-belted fishermen, drawing their nets to the shore, and accompanying each pull with a plaintive burden, that the echo of the mountain sends softened back. On the right, to the westward, the silvery track of the road, undulating amid thinly scattered houses, or clusters of orange and palm trees, leads the eye to the promontory of Bordighera, a huge emerald mound which shuts out the horizon, much in the shape of a leviathan couchant, his broad muzzle buried in the waters. Here you have, in a small compass, refreshing to behold, every shade of green that can gladden the eye, from the pale grey olive to the dark-foliaged cypress, of which one, ever and anon, an isolated sentinel, shoots forth high above the rest. Tufts of feathery palms, their heads tipped by the sun, the lower part in shade, spread their broad branches, like warriors' crests on the top, where the slender silhouette of the towering church-spire cuts sharply against the spotless sky.

The coast recedes inland with a graceful curve, then, with a gentle bend to the south, is lost by degrees in the far, far sea. Three headlands arise from the crescent, which so lovingly receives to its embrace a wide

expanse of the weary waters; three headlands of differing aspect and colour, lying one behind the other. The nearest is a bare red rock, so fiery in the sun the eye dares scarcely fix on it; the second, richly wooded, wears on its loftiest ridge a long hamlet, like to a mural crown; the third looks a mere blue mist in the distance, save one white speck. Two bright sails are rounding this last cape. The whole, flooded as it is with light, except where some projecting crag casts its transparent grey shadow, is seen again reversed, and in more faint loveliness, in the watery mirror below. Earth, sea, and sky mingle their different tones; and from their varieties, as from the notes of a rich, full chord, rises one great harmony. Golden atoms are floating in the translucent air, and a halo of mother-ofpearl colour hangs over the sharp outlines of the mountains.

"There is ample food for your pencil," said Antonio. "A fortnight hence, when you have become intimately acquainted with, and, so to say, made your own, the various beauties you are now viewing with such restless eyes, you will enjoy them to the full."

"But I do so already, I assure you," affirmed Lucy. "But will do so better in a little while," persisted Antonio. "The perception of the beautiful is gradual, and not a lightning revelation; it requires not only time, but some study. It is with a landscape such as this as with a piece of music, say a symphony. Many a beauty of detail we can make out on a first hearing, but the connecting links between the various passages, their reference to each other, and to the whole, what, in short, constitutes the ensemble of the performance, does not seize upon us till after we have heard it repeatedly and attentively."

"I daresay you are right," said Lucy, who generally thought Antonio right. "I wonder," she went on, "why anything Eastern-looking always takes such a hold on one's fancy. I cannot take my eyes from those palm-trees, they make me think of crusades and knights all mixed up with Scripture stories."

"Fancy borrows much from memory," said Antonio ; "and so looks back to the past. Stories first heard standing at a mother's knee are never wholly forgotten, -a little spring that never quite dries up in our journey through scorching years."

"I love this Bordighera!" said Lucy, after a little pause. "Beautiful as it is," remarked Antonio," it robs you of a most extensive and magnificent view of the coast of France."

"I do not regret it at all," answered Lucy; "a widespread landscape puzzles my attention, and then I never can keep my eye from straining to the horizon. The sea and the heavens are the only large spaces one really enjoys."

"Very true," said Antonio; "you have the soul of an artist."

journal of personal adventures. There is much information to be acquired in its perusal, both as to the social and political condition of Canada and of the neighbouring Republic. The volume is most appropriately dedicated to Lord Elgin, to whom we are undoubtedly indebted for the present loyal feelings of all classes of Canadians, and to whom the citizens of the United States owe scarcely less obligation for the liberal commercial policy which he not only inaugurated as Governor-General of British North America, but which he was the first of Transatlantic statesmen to originate. We have heard his lordship speak with modest pride of the great and glorious results of his constitutional government. When he first went out as Her Majesty's Lieutenant, he found the people disaffected to the mothercountry, and yearning for annexation to the United States. The administration of affairs was in the hands of a political and sectarian party, as grasping and intolerant as the old Orangemen of Ireland, with whom they claimed affinity of blood and bigotry. No Governor since Sir Guy Carleton had even made a pretence of impartiality. The autocratic airs and extravagant follies of some of the late Viceroys had alienated the hearts of the colonists, seemingly beyond the power of justice and conciliation to recall. But, perhaps, the worst of all the ominous signs of those times was the utter want of patriotic pride and national esprit de corps in the Canadians. They more than tacitly acknowledged their inferiority to the free and independent citizens of the United States, who once had been colonists like themselves; and they openly avowed their desire to transfer their allegiance to the Model Republic.

What is now the state of feeling in Canada? The Canadians are at least as free as their neighbours. We think few unprejudiced citizens of the Republic will deny that they are more so. Their public works are on as gigantic a scale; the population of their towns even more rapidly increasing; and, more and better than this, the colonist walks with a firm step and head erect, proud, as he well may be, of his province, and glorying in being a free subject of a monarchy whose traditions he treasures and whose rule he loves. The superannuated old traitor, Mr. W. Lyon Mackenzie, in the colony, and his friend Sir John Bowring away from it, are, probably, the only two living men out of Bedlam and the United who wish to see the Canadas incorporated as a state of the Union. This wholesome change of feeling we owe mainly, and almost entirely, to the manly course pursused by Lord Elgin, and to the Conservative and Imperial policy which he has unshrinkingly

maintained through good report and evil report. While we are on this subject, we may be permitted to express our astonishment at the strange infatuation which seems to preside over the movements of all Irishmen. Why do not the peasants from that unhappy country emigrate to a colony where labour is plentiful, provisions cheap, and taxes nominal; where their religion is honoured and their nationality respected; instead of rushing off to the United States, in quest of an apocryphal plenty and of a fanciful liberty, to find themselves treated as Pariahs, their faith ridiculed, and their country despised? And why, when once on the other side of the Atlantic, shivering and shuddering on the quays of Boston or New York, jeered at as "darnder cattle even than niggers," and convinced, by bitter experience, of their mistake, do they not get across the frontier, where they will readily find the El Dorado they seek, instead of returning to shiver and shudder again on the quays of Liverpool or Cork, till starvation drives them to the poorhouse or crime leads them to a gaol?

We cannot do better than quote the following passage from Mr. Oliphant's chapter on the

GROWING PROSPERITY OF CANADA.

The voyage from Coburg to Toronto occupies bethese places is thickly inhabited, while the population tween eight and nine hours. The country between

of Toronto itself has increased with wonderful rapidity within the last few years. In 1830 it scarcely contained 3,000 inhabitants: the population now exceeds 45,000. short period is only significant of the advancement of The progress which Toronto has made during this the province of which it is the capital. The population of Upper Canada has increased within the last six years from 800,000 to 1,400,000; and it is not too much to predict, that within ten years the whole of that vast tract of country lying west of a line drawn due north from Toronto to Lake Huron will be cleared. I travelled, during my residence in Canada, over a great part of this district, and everywhere found the most striking evidences of the advance of civilization. A glance at the statistical tables will confirm this. 1847 there were only 62,881 acres of crown land sold in Canada; in the year 1853 the returns amount to 256,059 acres. The imports of the former year scarcely attain £3,000,000; they now amount to upwards of £7,000,000. The exports have also in like manner been more than doubled. The revenue of the province in 1848 was given at about £300,000; and in 1854 it was upwards of £1,200,000 sterling, or more than fourWere anything more than fold its former amount. ordinary observation necessary, such results as these cannot fail to establish the fact of its extraordinary progress in wealth and material prosperity.

In

It would, indeed, be difficult to point to any country which offers greater attractions to the intending emigrant than does Canada at the present moment. With a vast extent of territory, clothed with magnificent forest, and watered by noble rivers, possessing a fertile soil, contiguous to one of the largest markets in the world, which is ever increasing, and to which it has a free and unrestricted access, the capitalist here finds a profitable field for investment; while the prospects of the labouring classes are still brighter if we may believe the report of Mr. Hawke, the chief emigration agent at

K

Toronto, from which the following paragraph is an extract: "Blessed with so good a soil and climate as Upper Canada possesses, and favoured by Providence with a long and uninterrupted succession of good harvests, there is no country where the labouring man can find more constant employment and remunerative wages, in proportion to the expense of living." It is an interesting fact, that, of the emigrants who arrive in Canada, not more than one-half make it their permanent abode: the remainder pass on to the tempting provinces in the north-west. It has been calculated that, during the last twelve years, about £500,000 have been expended by these transitory emigrants. There is still, however, plenty of land available for settlement in Canada. There are now about 160 acres to each individual; and it will require twenty-five years, assisted by an annual immigration of 25,000 persons, to settle the province in the proportion of twenty persons to a square mile, or thirty-two acres to each individual. To those, however, who are about to emigrate, either to Canada or the north-west states of America, I would recommend the admirable tracts of Mr. Vere Foster, who has condensed in a penny publication all the information requisite for the intending emigrant. The two principal sources of employment for unskilled labourers are upon railways, or in the lumber trade.

But we will leave statistics and politics interesting as the politics of Canada are to all who, like ourselves, have seen somewhat of the growth of its new institutions on its own soiland accompany Mr. Oliphant on his tour. Here is a graphic description of one of their halts

There is always plenty of employment for everybody

on these occasions. Some make the fire and collect wood; others clear away the underwood, and spread fern and leafy branches to serve as a bed; others cut tent-poles, and the rest bring up the contents of the canoes. Bury and I used to consider it a duty to plunge into the river morning and evening, besides indulging in an occasional swim throughout the day, when a hot sun and a clear deep pool formed an irre

sistible combination.

In less than an hour the bath is over, and we are dressed for dinner in the flannel costume in which we pass the night. The various components of that meal are hissing and bubbling, and manifesting other signs of impatience to be taken off the fire; the tent is pitched in the levellest place, which is abundantly strewed with leaves; and all that we possess with us is scattered about in grotesque confusion. Wet clothes are hung on branches above the fire to dry; and with our legs tucked under us, and our plates in our laps, we look complacently round, and consider ourselves the most enviable of mortals.

The Indians had drawn up the canoes and tilted them on their sides, and, spreading a tarpaulin over all, they managed thus to hut themselves very comfortably. Dinner finished, we became excessively social over large tin pannikins full of strong green tea. The Captain and Bonaquum were evidently the wits of the party, and I have no doubt made excellent puns in Chippeway, as their conversation created great merriment, in which, of course, we both joined, upon the principle recognised in civilized society, of seeming to enjoy a joke whether you take it or not. time I amused myself sketching the group. Bury became sentimental under the influence of the potent beverage he was imbibing, and lapsed gradually into a dreamy, semi-conscious state, from which, to the astonishment of everybody, he suddenly awoke, and ex.

Mean

pressed his sentiments upon the proceedings of the day in the following glowing stanza:"Now the light bark o'er pool and rapid shoots Now glances where the angry waters boil, 'Neath tall old trees, whose giant, gnarled roots Eat deep into the soft, alluvial soil. Now over rocky portage paths we toil, Our freight in some still lake to launch again; And as we go, the sombre forest aisle Re-echoes back a plaintive Indian strainSome wild old legend of this lovely land,

Ere yet 'twas wrested from the red man's hand." The only part of this effusion, which was altogether a poetical license, was about the wild old legend, which we had certainly not been favoured with. However, it suggested the idea; and Kabeshquum, who was reputed the musical genius of the party, was forthwith called upon for "a plaintive Indian strain." After a little modest coyness, and having secured a second from Bonaquum, and a chorus from the rest of the party, he lifted up his clear, sweet voice, and, with a comical accent, he informed the amazed company that he was about

"To hang his harp on a willow-tree,

And off to the wars again."

It would have been impossible for Kabeshquum to have given a more sudden and violent shock to one's whole sentimental system than when he expressed his regret in the words of that tender ditty

"That he had not loved with a boyish love." The whole effect was exquisitely ludicrous, and, at the same time, highly significant of the change which had passed over the land and its original inhabitants since it had been "wrested from the red man's hand."

There is something sad as well as ludicrous in the countryman of Hiawatha remembering no legends of his own race, and, when called upon for a story, or song of the olden time," breaking out in a ridiculous recitation of a Haynes Bailey-ish ballad.

Some of Mr. Oliphant's American stories are admirable, and many of the best bear an impress of truth. It is a good "bit" where one citizen is introduced to him by another, as 66 Mr. —, accounted the politest man at the Soo,"-Soo meaning the Sault Ste. Marie. Again, this is a capital anecdote :

SAVE THE MAN WITH THE RED HAIR!

It requires great coolness and experience to steer a canoe down these rapids; and a short time before our arrival, two Americans had ventured to descend them without boatmen, and were, consequently, upset. As the story was reported to us, one of them owed his salvation to a similar coincidence. As the accident took place immediately opposite the town, many of the inhabitants were attracted to the bank of the river to watch the struggles of the unfortunate men, thinking any attempt at a rescue would be hopeless. Suddenly, however, a person appeared rushing towards the group, frantic with excitement. "Save the man with the red hair!" he vehemently shouted; and the exertions which were made in consequence of his earnest appeals proved successful, and the red-haired individual, in an exhausted condition, was safely landed. "He owes me eighteen dollars," said his rescuer, drawing a long breath, and looking approvingly on his assistants. The red-haired man's friend had not a creditor at the Sault, and in default of a competing claim, was allowed to pay his debt to nature. "And I'll tell you

a

what it is, stranger," said the narrator of the foregoing incident, complacently drawing a moral therefrom; man 'ill never know how necessary he is to society if he don't make his life valuable to his friends as well as to his-self."

The description given to our author of a firm friend of the speaker, that he "was a hull, team, and a horse to spare, besides a big dog under the waggon," we do not think so good as our own version of the simile. We once asked a young lady of fashion, in New York, if Miss Dash were not rather fast. Fast!" was the reply; "I believe so. She's a whole team and a bulldog under the waggon.' The comparison seems to us more æsthetically to apply to a young lady's "fastness than to the steadiness of a man's friendship. perhaps we are hypercritical.

But

The gem and flower, however, of all the good stories in this volume is the description of—

THE BALL ON BOARD THE "SAM WARD."

But the most propitious time for ingratiating oneself with our fair passengers was at the evening dance, the band being composed of niggers, who officiated during the day as barbers. There was one lovely girl, with a

noble, thoughtful brow, black hair and eyes, perfect features, and a most irresistible smile, with that clear, transparent complexion which is never to be met with out of America, to whom I had from the first ardently desired an opportunity of being introduced; and I shall never forget the thrill of pleasure which I felt when, upon the two guitars and a fiddle ranging themselves along the bottom of the saloon, and striking up a lively tune, this fair creature, near whom I happened to be standing, artlessly remarked, "that she had a mind to take the knots out of her legs;"-a piece of information on her part which I interpreted to mean that I was at liberty to offer my services to assist her in this proceeding; and I accordingly solicited the honour of being her partner, and "annexed to her

right away."

Alas! I little knew what I had undertaken, or how completely I had over-estimated my own saltatory powers. Our vis-à-vis were a very tall, thin, flat lady,

with a figure like a plank, and a short wizened old man, who reached to her elbow, with grey, bushy eyebrows, which almost concealed his small, piercing eyes, and a huge, grizzly beard, so thick and matted, that when he compressed his lips, in the energy of the dance, it was impossible to tell within a quarter of an inch where his mouth was. During the moments of rest, however, he twitched it with a short, jerking motion, as if he was knitting with his jaws. He was buttoned up to the chin in a straight, military-looking coat; but he had short, baggy trousers, dirty stockings, and his large splay feet were thrust into a pair of very old pumps. The band played nigger melodies, and accompanied themselves vocally. The dance was a sort of cotillon; but we were entirely dependent for our figures upon the caprice of the band-leader, who periodically shouted his orders. My partner and the little old man opposite commenced operations. With clenched teeth and contracted brow did he give himself up to the pleasures of the dance. Now he plunged violently forward, then retreated with a double shuffle, then seized my partner by the waist, and whirling her rapidly into the middle, danced round her demoniacally, performing the "pigeon-wing on de floor and de same in the ar," he pirouetted first on one leg, then on the other, then jumped into the air with both, finished

up with "Pete Johnson's knock," and the "under cleets," and retired breathless to scowl at me and work his jaws defiantly. As my turn had come I now made a dash at his partner, and attempted a series of similar gymnastic exercises, in a solemn and violent way, conscious all the while of the glance of profound contempt with which my fair companion eyed my performances, as I energetically hopped round her tall vis-à-vis, whom I might have imagined a Maypole. But not until the dance became more complicated, and the orders followed each other with rapidity, and distracted my attention, did I feel the full effect of my rashness. The band sang, "Heigh Nelly, Ho Nelly, listen lub to me;" and then the leader shouted, "Gents to the right!" and away we all shot in the required direction. Then came, "I sing for you-I play for you a dulcem melody." "Balance in line!" There was a puzzle! I got into everybody's line but my own; and my partner, with her sweet smile, said that I had come near riling her, but that she was amost too tired to locomote much longer;" so that we were both much relieved when the last order came of, Promenayde all to your seats;" and in a state of extreme exhaustion we threw ourselves on a couch, satisfied that the great end had been gained, and that such violent treatment. no knot could have been obstinate enough to resist

In another steamboat, one of the author's friends takes up his quarters, by mistake, in the lady's cabin, one of the fair occupants of which tells him, "Guess you put for the wrong pew, Mister."

We do not remember ever to have witnessed a more striking example of how readily we

"Compound for sins we are inclined to,

By damning those we have no mind to,"

than in the virtuous indignation manifested by

the citizens of the Northern states at the desire evinced by their Southern countrymen to annex Cuba, and in the counter reprobation expressed by the Southerners if a Yankee is unprincipled enough to hint at the absorption of Canada into the Republic.

Mr. Oliphant in the subjoined extract :-
This national trait is amusingly depicted by

If I turn to Colonel Brown of the Texan Rangers, and ask him whether he would like to annex Canada, he growls out in his forcible manner, "Jest as soon annex -," mentioning those regions which, to judge from their frequent recurrence in his conversation, are ever uppermost in his mind. If, on the other hand, I suggest to my Massachusetts friend the propriety of annexing Cuba, he says blandly, “Wal now, mister, we opine down-east that such an act would call down upon our country the wrath of this world and the vengeance of the other; and all I can say is, that if our President and his Government-and pack of 'em don't make up into one old woman I'd own as a relation-commit such a blamenation piece of injustice, I'd like to see the price of the unhappy niggers in that island paid for in blood ten times over, rather than let it fall into the hands of a parcel of blood-sucking nigger-driving Southerners, whose existence I esteem the greatest blot upon fair creation. Annex Cuba! No, sirree."

But though Colonel Brown considers that it would be the height of injustice to annex Canada, he maintains that his Government is bound by every obligation, moral and divine, to appropriate Cuba; and he says, that the proposal of Spain to emancipate the slaves

in that island calls for immediate intervention on the part of his Government, upon which he heaps the vilest epithets, to ward off a blow which so seriously menaces liberty generally, and that glorious institution in particular upon which its existence depends. And as he delivers himself of these sentiments with great volubility for he has extracted bis plug from his left cheek to secure greater freedom of utterance, and it is firmly clutched between the fingers of his out-stretched hand-he glares savagely at the former speaker, winds up by calling him a squash-headed, cent-shaving, whitlin-o-nothin Yankee, and flips his quid into the middle of the street as a mark of supreme contempt.

The Yankee is cowed for a moment, but informs me, in an under-tone, that though to annex Cuba would be to commit murder and robbery in their most aggravated forms, to incite Canadians to rebellion would be to perform a holy duty towards an oppressed and enslaved people, and that he hopes to see the day when there will not be an acre of the North American continent owned by a British subject.

1855.

1855.

THREE thick octavo volumes, each containing more than three hundred closely-printed pages, present a formidable appearance to the reader of romances; and such is the appearance of Miss Beale's new novel. Nevertheless, when the mind is made up, and the reader fairly launched, the Simplicity and Fascination, both of plot and style, are sure to carry him on to the end.

The novel before us is a very comfortable tale, full of quiet, home, Christmas scenes, pleasant characters, incidents not over complicated, and satisfactory results. Jessie Burton in the part of Simplicity, and Annabella, her sister, the representative of Fascination, glide pleasantly through life, though not entirely in accordance with the purpose of the writer, nor carrying out the moral evidently intended. Jessie, the guardian of her orphan sister and brothers, the self-devoted and considerate, does not meet with a lot so pre-eminently superior to her sister as is demanded by the ethics of a simple story. Her lover deserts her for her sister, and is, in turn, abandoned by the fascinating Annabella. The latter marries one Captain Chatham Michelson, the way being smoothed by an opportune gift of money from a sympathizing countess, the bridegroom's grand

mother; and, although Annabella loses one or two children in India, she is happy in the bloom of life, in the love of an affectionate husband, and the caresses of her eldest son, born in England, and of a healthy complexion. Jessie, on the contrary, spends her best years in sacrificing herself to the good of her fellow-creatures. When grey is beginning to streak her head, she obtains her reward by marrying her first love, reclaimed from his love for Annabella, a colonel in the Indian service. sioned on the loss of his right arm in an Indian war, he kindly bestows his remaining hand on the patient and forgiving Jessie.

Pen

The third volume is decidedly the best, the concluding scenes being worked more dramatically than in its two predecessors. We extract a scene of great pathos as a good specimen of Miss Beale's powers. Annabella is returning to England with her only remaining Indian child. The little girl is in the last stage of consumption. Mrs. Michelson, on embarking, has heard a report of her husband's death in a distant battlescene, and her grief is only alleviated by her anxiety for the state of her little daughter. By the same ship returns Annabella's lover, maimed, sorrowful, and his mind directed towards higher things: